[Sydney 9 Reuters]-The Australian Consumer Confidence Index in October, published by the Melbourne Institute and Westpac Bank <WBC.AX>, dropped 5.5% from the previous month.
September fell 1.7%. Compared to the same month last year, it decreased by 8.6%.
The October index was 92.8, the lowest since July 2015. It showed that the pessimistic answer greatly exceeded the optimistic answer. The survey was conducted on 1200 people.
This result is expected to be a concern for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA, Central Bank), which cut its policy rate to a record low of 0.75% to support consumption.
“Even if the interest rate falls, confidence will improve, especially in consumer expectations and perspectives,” said Bill Evans, chief economist at Westpac. “This time, the two sub-indexes have dropped 3.7% and 4.3%, respectively, despite the central bank's interest rate cuts, the outlook for the economy as a whole (after one year) is 6%, “A five-year outlook) may be partly due to a 9.1% decline.”
"Consumers are nervous to read the reason behind the rate cut," he said.